Digitally created artwork submitted by post is a fair compromise. We know that when cartoonists submit artwork by email there is always one who shuns the standard 300dpi Jpeg format and goes for a Tiff file the size of a house!

There are two categories in the Young Cartoonists contest: under 18 and under 30. One cartoon, up to A4 in size, can be submitted and it can be colour or black and white. Send to: Young Cartoonists of the Year Competition, Cartoon Museum, 35 Little Russell Street, London WC1A 2HH. The closing date for entries is 30 September. Artwork cannot be returned.

Judges include cartoonists from newspaper including The Times, The Guardian and Private Eye. The judges’ decision is final. Winners will be given their prizes at the Cartoon Art Trust Awards on 17 October.

The Dandy: 75 Years of Biffs, Bangs and Banana Skins opens at the Cartoon Museum in London today.

The exhibition runs until 24 December, effectively out-living the comic itself, as the final print issue comes out on 4 December – 75 years to the day since its launch.

The comic will be moving online though, and the Cartoon Museum says that the exhibition will look forward “as Dandy prepares to embark on a new digital adventure“. It will include some exclusive material from the new Dandy which is currently in development,

Lots of favourite characters from the past feature in the show, such as Desperate Dan, Korky the Cat, Corporal Clot, Winker Watson, Brassneck and Bananaman. Younger readers will be able to see Harry Hill, PreSkool Prime Minister and other recent strips. Visit the Cartoon Museum website for more details.

There’s no doubt that the news media is undergoing something of a traumatic transitional phase, as the move towards digital continues.

But the people who make the cartoons that go with the news appear to have it even worse, particularly in America. As The Economist has noted, those at the forefront of news and comment on the internet, such as The Huffington Post, and Rupert Murdoch’s new venture The Daily, do not appear to believe that cartoons are part of the package.

The magazine has spoken to the cartoonist Matt Bors – see his excerpt from a graphic travelogue covering a trip to Afghanistan, above – to discuss different ways that editorial cartoons can evolve, in an article on the future of cartooning.

You may have read about the new Disney film The Princess and the Frog, which is out this week. What you may also have read is that it is “a return to hand-drawn animation”.

Bloghorn would like to dispute this by pointing out a simple fact: cartoons drawn digitally are still hand drawn.

The tools may have changed, but it takes as much creativity and drawing skill to create a cartoon digitally as it does using pen and paper. Pixar Animation Studios did not create such awe-inspiring digital films as Toy Story and Up by hitting a key or clicking a mouse.

The Princess and the Frog is, rather, a return to traditional methods of animation, and it’s good too see that these can co-exist alongside digital.

What’s notable is that Disney’s first 2D animated film in five years appears now that Walt Disney Animation Studios is being run by John Lasseter, the creative force behind Pixar and a man who knows that it’s not the tools you use that matter, it’s the ideas and creativity.

Or, as Bob Mankoff, Cartoon Editor of the New Yorker, once put it: “It’s not the ink, it’s the think.”

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Disclaimer: Any opinion expressed here is that of the named individual and not that of the UK Professional Cartoonists' Organisation unless explicitly stated. Artwork attributed to a named author or publication on this diary should be noted by anyone linking to us from any other site. Thank you. If you wish to reproduce an image please contact the artist from here.